Filipinos Doing the CHA-CHA?

Remember I was saying that President Gloria is in hot water due to a scandal? And that there are talks in the Philippines of another “People Power” to overthrow the presidency?

Well, here’s another term that we should all be getting familiar with as the plot thickens: The CHA-CHA, or CHARTER CHANGE.

Let me break this down: Now that the heat is on, GMA and her cronies figure that the Filipino people probably won’t let them wriggle out of the current scandal, so they’re pushing something called ‘Charter Change’, which means they want to amend the Constitution.

One of the constitutional amendments is in regards to length of Presidency. If Charter Change (or ‘CHA-CHA’ as those creative Filipinos have nick’d it — GAWD so CORNY!!!) goes through, there will be no term limit on Presidency. That means that Arroyo can stay in power past her current, non-renewable term ending in 2010, or pretty much as long as she damn well pleases.

It’s not hard to make a connection between Arroyo’s current troubles and this renewed push toward a Constitutional Amendment. Obviously, her people are hustling to guarantee her unlimited power, thus guaranteeing themselves their current positions of power.

Again, this is hardly breaking the headlines now, but it could pretty serious if it goes through. Remember when Ferdinand Marcos made himself President forever… “for the good of the Filipino people”? Yeah… that didn’t end so well.

It baffles me how this isn’t setting off more alarm bells both in the Philippines and abroad. Something like this is happening and no one is even talking about it. It’s sort of pathetic.

If you want to know what’s going down, you can read more about it HERE, and you can school all your friends when the shit hits the fan.